


A Life Together

by StevetheIcecube



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 16:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StevetheIcecube/pseuds/StevetheIcecube
Summary: A man passed out on the outskirts of Sheik's village. When he awakes, he puts into motion a series of events that change Sheik's life forever.





	A Life Together

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Sheik,” Link said. They’d only met hours ago, and here he was, crying his eyes out on Sheik’s shoulder. “I just- I don’t-”

“It’s okay,” he said. Even though it really wasn’t okay, and Link clearly wasn’t okay, it was evident to him that there was something he could do. He could feel it, somewhere deep down inside him. In his anima, even, maybe, but he’d never heard of someone’s anima doing this before. “It’s going to be okay.”

The man sobbed even more. He was covered in dirt and dust, he’d practically collapsed on Sheik’s doorstep earlier, entirely out of chance, though maybe it was something more. Something controlling things from on high which they couldn’t see.

But if the goddesses existed, if Hylia existed, why had they made him suffer like this? Why had he fought through all these things that Link had just described for him only to be afflicted by this terrible guilt, this terrible sadness? Why did salvation have to follow a disaster when they could just avoid the disaster altogether?

Sheik was a holy man; sure, he didn’t believe in Hylia in the way many of the villagers did. They believed in a wonderful goddess who loved them and took care of them and so many other things, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in the goddess at all. Because he did. He was good, he followed the teachings he had been introduced to as a child.

But seeing Link like this, seeing this man who had done so much and gained so little for a service he was bound to for what seemed like eternity, shook Sheik’s faith. He didn’t want to believe in a goddess who had the capacity to hate- no, maybe it wasn’t about hate. Maybe it was just indifference. A willingness to let someone else do the things to make up for your mistakes rather than dealing with them yourself. He wasn’t sure he could forgive behaviour like that from the goddess.

He put both his arms around Link, this man who had no reason to have opened up like this to him and yet he had, probably because he had felt this same thing deep within him that compelled him to feel all this strange familiarity, and let the man cry. Sheik felt like he probably needed it.

\- 

And when Link was done with that, and he’d slept, and he’d had a meal, and helped Sheik with some errands in the garden and then tidying the house, and then… Then he went down to the market with Sheik. And then he helped him carry items home. And used his own money to buy something for the house, just a blanket to alleviate the problem of him borrowing one to sleep on the floor, and…

Link didn’t broach the topic of leaving. Sheik knew they were both thinking about it, because how could they not be? Sheik’s house wasn’t exactly built for one, it was too large, but at the same time...they’d never talked about Link staying. So they were kind of in a limbo where neither of them knew what the other was thinking about Link staying or going.

Link had mentioned that he didn’t have anywhere to live and he’d struggled to find a job but he couldn’t keep killing monsters for money because he didn’t want that to be his only talent and the only thing keeping him alive over the years. He’d been fighting on his quest since a year after Ganon had dealt that blow to the capital, and at this point it had been five years. Link was younger than Sheik, and that just made it so much worse.

Logically, Link should stay. Even if he couldn’t pay any rent and Sheik didn’t really need any help around the house, he was incredibly useful and Sheik liked having the company. It was very lonely, living in a village where you were always the outsider. Always the one just hanging on, a legacy that no one could get rid of because they felt bad about it.

And over time, with neither of them mentioning anything about Link staying or moving on, Sheik found himself feeling...he really liked Link. He wanted to support Link. He wanted Link to be there for him. There was something within him that had resonated with meeting Link, and at the same time there were parts of him that felt inexplicably at home with him, parts of him that he’d never even really been aware of before when he wasn’t doing magic.

That was when it happened. It was a late night, and it was clear and warm outside. So they went out and sat up on the hill at the back of Sheik’s too-big house that was meant to house a family and probably a couple of animals but the inhabitants had long been...there was a reason Sheik owned this house and it wasn’t because he was wealthy beyond his needs.

It was beautiful outside and they just sat and looked at the stars. They sat close together, even though it was warm out and they didn’t need to, but Sheik knew he wanted to and Link was always clear with setting up boundaries when he needed them. And when Sheik heard Link shift a little, he turned his head to face him and Link was...very close.

Things went from there in a way that Sheik had not expected them to, not in a million years. Yet even though he hadn’t expected it, it felt right. Link’s lips against his cheek, against his lips. Their hands linked, their fingers locked. No space between them because there didn’t need to be space because they had each other.

-

Sheik wasn’t going to pretend that they were well-liked or well-respected in town. At least, he wasn’t. The Sheikah man who’d taken that property at the edge of town because it had belonged to his aunt whose family had been slaughtered by a villager and no one else had been willing to take it, the Sheikah man who dabbled in herbalism and not much else, who practised the worship of the goddess in a different way.

The Sheikah man who had taken in another man, collapsed on his doorstep one evening, and now, according to the rumours, shared his bed with him. This man, a stranger, who barely spoke to the people of the village but always had a spare moment for the dogs or the horses. Link, the stranger, who was Hylian yet didn’t appear to worship the goddess at all. It was unthinkable, unimaginable, that anyone in town would like them, especially not as a pair.

But someone left a heavily pregnant cat on their doorstep, and then the dog that had been caught up in a bandit attack the month before. So now they were a house of two, plus an adult cat and five kittens, and a dog with three working legs and one eye. So maybe they weren’t so much hated, just not approached directly.

The point when it got ridiculous was when someone left a baby on their doorstep. Did they expect two men to know how to take care of a newborn? Neither of them had even had siblings, let alone infant ones. But Link had quieted the child and walked down to the bakery where he’d spoken to the woman who had owned the mother of their dog and she’d talked them through everything without ever offering to take the child off their hands.

Link named the child Zelda and Sheik would have guessed that story from the sadness in his eyes, even if that wasn’t the very first story Link had told him when Sheik had asked him if he was okay on that night over a year before.

“What happened to get you here?” He’d asked, the man on the other side of his sofa shivering and sniffing every few seconds. It had been followed by a long, awkward silence, filled only by the sounds of crying from a man who hadn’t even introduced himself yet.

“I’m responsible for the death of the Princess Zelda,” he’d managed, and that had been when their eyes met. That had been when Sheik felt a spark within him that he was yet to understand.

It had been the lowest point of Link’s life. But it had been the moment that started the best time for both of them. And now they were here in a house on the outskirts of a tiny village, a house that a year ago had been too big, too quiet, and too full of death.

Maybe there were still ghosts hiding in the corners. In fact, Sheik would attest to ghosts hiding in Link’s heart. And there was definitely something creepy about the kitchen cupboard when he’d gone to grab some food at two in the morning. But now this house on the outskirts of a tiny village had parents and a child, and animals and happiness and new life.

It was the new start, the new breath of fresh air into his life, that a year ago, Sheik hadn’t even known he’d needed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) please leave a comment if you enjoyed this.


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